Archive for the ‘Electronic DBS’ Category

The new Care Certificate that came on stream in April this year identified set of standards that health and social care workers should adhere to in their daily working life. Good.

It was designed with the non-regulated workforce in mind to enable and empower newcomers to the sector. Also good, though the driver was the Francis Report and that highlighted improvement for the practical skills of care staff . . . and nurses, whose role is completely different.

It is aimed at delivering a comprehensive induction, and indeed, is much better than its former model. Again, good.

The outline of learning is supposed to facilitate compassionate, safe and high quality care and support. Well, yes . . .

And all this within three months induction period. You must be joking!

This ‘tool’ for care is cumbersome, taking so much time it’s impractical as a way in to essential knowledge. I know of plenty of cases where providers are still struggling to complete the induction after six months. Surely there’s something wrong!

Critically, does it really give us better carers? No, and what’s more it’s a big turn-off for sector recruitments.

Where previous induction initiatives were centred on essentials (all be it too regulatory focussed) about each area of the industry which enable people to start work within the first six weeks and then build on their knowledge as they worked, now new recruits have a huge block of learning to go through.

Come on, real world dynamics need to apply here!

So, what have we achieved? We have successfully created an industry running round in circles to get as much of the learning tasks completed as possible in the shortest possible time.

What’s more, the process is costing far more that the previous model at a time when the providers have far less to spend. Failure, sadly is inevitable.

Is this a step forward? No, it’s just another hurdle for us the struggle over, where attempts to wholesale avoid risk by the age-old tradition of training on the job actually denies caring.